This invention relates to an electronic printing apparatus capable of scanning a manuscript with a laser beam and reproducing the contents of the manuscript on copying paper.
Recently electronic printing apparatuses have been developed which scan the surface of a manuscript with a laser beam and reproduce the contents or copy image of the manuscript on copying paper, for use as output printers of computers or documents storage/reference apparatuses, for example. The apparatuses of this type are expected to enjoy further increased demand in the future due to various advantages such as capability of high-speed processing, reduced noise, simple mechanism, ease of enlargement or reduction of copy image, transmissibility to external systems, etc.
In one such prior art electronic printing apparatus, the main body of the apparatus contains two laser scanning systems; a reading laser scanning system oscillating a laser beam and changing it into scanning beam for the scanning of a manuscript, and a writing laser scanning system emitting a laser beam modulated by reflected light from the manuscript and exposing a photoconductive material. Thus, the use of the two expensive laser scanning systems cannot help boosting the total cost of the apparatus, thereby retarding the spread of the electronic printing apparatuses of this type.